Weekly Cantata

~ Memories, musings, and movie script fantasies inspired by Bach cantatas, along with recommendations for recordings

Weekly Cantata

Monthly Archives: August 2016

Christmas in August

27 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Trinity

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according to Lutheran Church year, Anhalt-Zerbst, Anna Magdalena Bach, Bach, Bruce Dickey, cantatas, City Council, Collegium Vocale Gent, concerto palatino, cornetto, Deborah York, Eduard van Hengel, Hana Blazikova, Ingeborg Danz, Köthen, Leipzig, Lutheran Church year, Mark Padmore, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe, Ratswechsel, recorder, Saxe-Weissenfels, Thomas Hobbs, trombone, trumpet, Wilcke

gesu_lebbrosi
Jesus heals ten lepers, from the Codex Aureus of Echternach, c. 1035-1040

Only a handful of Bach cantatas ask for the Renaissance/Early Baroque ensemble of one cornetto and three trombones in the opening and closing chorus. This instrumentation was considered somewhat “old fashioned” in Bach’s time, while at the same time it was still very normal in cities to hear Stadtpfeifers (city pipers) play chorales from the towers during the day, to remind the citizens of their Christian duties. In this Cantata 25 Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe, for the 14th Sunday after Trinity (August 29 in 1723), the playing of the chorale tune by this ensemble in the opening chorus stands for the way it has always been, the way it has been true for centuries.

palatino
Concerto Palatino, the leading cornetto/trombone ensemble for the past 25 years. Photo by Sabrina Flauger. Learn more about them here.

My preferred recording of Cantata 25 is the one by Herreweghe, on the same album as cantata 105 for Trinity 9 and cantata 46 for Trinity 10, as well as cantata 138 for next week. Soloists in cantata 25: soprano Hana Blažíková, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and bass Peter Kooij. Cornetto: Bruce Dickey  (pictured above, front row, on left); trombones: Claire McIntyre, Simen van Mechelen (pictured above, top row, on left), and Joost Swinkels.

Listen to this recording on Spotify or on YouTube. Please consider supporting the artists by purchasing this album (containing four cantatas for this 1723 Trinity season) on Amazon.

Read the text of this cantata here, and find the score here.

I could write an entire blog post about the opening chorus alone, the way I did last week for cantata 77 and two weeks earlier for cantata 179. But in the interest of variety, I’m going to keep this section short, and I will just say that the opening chorus  is an incredible, unrivaled complex composition for ten voices, again completely different than any opening chorus the Leipzig congregations had heard before during this Trinity season of 1723. By having the “ancient” brass quartet play the chorale melody of Herzlich tut mich verlangen nach einem selgen End (With my whole heart I long for my blessed End / my Salvation)** Bach shows that the promise of salvation after death will always provide a silver lining to the sorrow of the daily, sinful human condition. He also illustrates this “salvation” with the recorders in the uplifting and soothing soprano aria (Hana Blažíková in top shape!), and the brass and recorders in the closing chorale, and intensifies the “sickness” of the human sins by setting these texts to “dry” recitatives  (though listen to that bass arioso, beautifully sung by Peter Kooij) in between. Again, it was completely normal in his day and age to think this way, and Bach saw it as his mission in life to teach this theology to his fellow Lutherans by way of his church music.

But, listen to the festive, large orchestra for this cantata! No less than four brass players (one cornetto and three trombones) and five wind players (two oboists and three recorder players) were required at the same time in the opening chorus and closing chorale. For a cantata about the healing of ten lepers? Well, it turns out that this weekend it was Christmas in August for Bach, and the extra players were probably in town for the much more important and incredibly festive Cantata 119 Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn that was on the calendar for the next day, Monday August 30, the day of the inauguration of the new City Council (Ratswechsel). *** As I already suggested in my post about cantata 147, Bach might have sometimes used guest musicians in his orchestra who were in town for other reasons, and judging from the level of playing required for the Brandenburg concerto-like Cantata 119, the extra brass (all playing trumpet in 119) and wind (playing oboe and recorder in 119) players might have been needed to be of the level of court chamber musician, not just Stadtpfeifer (usually a lower rank, and not necessarily used to playing the complicated court music). So in my probably not so unlikely movie script fantasy, Bach hired musicians from the not too far away courts where he had worked before or where his in-laws worked (Köthen, Weissenfels, Zerbst) to play in the orchestra on Monday August 30, and he had asked them to also play in the service on Sunday August 29.

Listen to the Ratswechsel cantata 119 Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn as recorded by Herreweghe on YouTube. (Soloists: soprano Deborah York; alto Ingeborg Danz; tenor Mark Padmore, bass Peter Kooij.)

Wieneke Gorter, August 24, 2016, updated September 10, 2020.

** Several writers have suggested the chorale best known to the congregation at the time (on the melody we have later come to know as O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden) would have been instead Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, but I agree with Eduard van Hengel that because of Bach’s use of the angel-like recorders and the heavenly brass it makes more sense to go with Herzlich tut mich verlangen nach einem selgen End.

*** The new city council was always chosen on August 24, and then inaugurated on the first Monday following August 24, which was Monday August 30 in 1723.

A most amazing trumpet part

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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Anhalt-Zerbst, Anna Magdalena Bach, Bach, Bach Collegium Japan, BWV 635, BWV 678, BWV 679, BWV 75, BWV 76, BWV 77, Gottfried Reiche, John Eliot Gardiner, Köthen, Kirsten Sollek, Luther, Lutheran Church year, Masaaki Suzuki, organ preludes, Peter Kooy, Saxe-Weissenfels, slide trumpet, Toshio Shimada, tromba da tirarsi, trumpet, Wilcke

master_of_the_good_samaritan_001
The Good Samaritan by “the Master of the Good Samaritan,” Dutch, 1537

To fully appreciate today’s cantata, I encourage you to first listen to Luther’s hymn,  Dies sind die heil’gen Zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments). I was not familiar with this tune, and had to do some research to understand what the slide trumpet was playing in the opening chorus. It was a very well-known hymn in Bach’s time. The Leipzig congregations sang it many times a year, and also sang it during the church services on Sunday August 22, 1723, the 13th Sunday after Trinity (probably preceded by an organ prelude in the style of BWV 635, see below). It was an important hymn for Bach. You can listen to his own chorale setting of it here.

It is also worthwhile to listen how Bach used this melody in three very different organ works: BWV 635, BWV 678, and BWV 679. He wrote BWV 635 as part of the Orgelbüchlein, in Weimar, the other two in the mid 1730s as part of the Clavier-Übung III.

The cantata for this Sunday, cantata 77 Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben features this chorale-tune in the opening chorus, but only in the tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) part and the continuo part. In the continuo it appears in long notes, and is not as clearly audible as in the trumpet part. There are exactly ten entrances for the trumpet within that opening chorus, the last time featuring the entire chorale tune, of course pointing to the ten commandments.

Bach Collegium Japan’s recording showcases this feature the best of all recordings I listened to, superbly played by Toshio Shimada, on a real tromba da tirarsi. I also like his playing the best in the alto aria. Listen to this recording on Spotify.

Read the text here, and find the score here.

John Eliot Gardiner suggests that Bach made a theological statement by presenting his first two Trinity cantatas in Leipzig,  75 for Trinity 1 (focusing on the love of God/how to be before God) and 76 for Trinity 2 (focusing on brotherly love/how to love one’s neighbor) in close relation to each other, and that all through this 1723 Trinity season he has tried to reinforce the idea that those themes are connected, and how the believers should apply the laws from the Bible to themselves and to their own daily lives. He further argues that with this opening chorus he comes full circle back to that connection, by using a double fugue, by reminding the listeners of the “law” by way of the chorale in  the trumpet part, and by setting the text of the Gospel immediately preceding the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10):

27. Er antwortete und sprach: Du sollst GOtt, deinen HErrn, lieben von ganzem Herzen, von ganzer Seele, von allen Kräften und von ganzem Gemüt und deinen Nächsten als dich selbst.

[27] And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

After the bass recitative and soprano aria further elaborating on the “Love for God”-theme, and the tenor aria on the “Good Samaritan / Love your neighbor”-theme, we are treated to the most amazing tromba da tirarsi playing of all Bach cantatas written for this instrument, in this very unusual and humble alto aria, beautifully sung by mezzo-soprano Kirsten Sollek, and expertly played on the slide trumpet by Toshio Shimada.

This is an incredibly difficult part for the tromba da tirarsi, and almost impossible to play well on a “regular” Baroque trumpet. Was this Bach’s way of illustrating the “Unvolkommenheit” in the text? Would even Reiche not have been able to play this perfectly, with only a few days rehearsal time? And/or did Bach want people in the church to pay attention, so that this would be a true moment of reflection in the service?

In the region where Bach lived and worked, the trumpeters were very good, and Bach knew them and their world well, especially since he had married into a trumpet family in 1721. All the men in Anna Magdalena Wilcke’s family that we know of (father, brother, and husbands of all three sisters) were well-regarded trumpeters at the Anhalt-Zerbst court, about 17 miles (28 km) directly north of Köthen, and the Saxe-Weissenfels court, about 22 miles (35 km) south-west of Leipzig. The trumpeters in Leipzig were all Stadtpfeifer, employed by the city, and thus not always available to him.

Wieneke Gorter, August 20, 2016, updated September 5, 2020.

Trumpets and timpani on a regular Sunday

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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according to Lutheran Church year, Bach, Bach Collegium Japan, cantatas, John Eliot Gardiner, Lutheran Church year, Masaaki Suzuki, Peter Kooy, Toshio Shimada, Which cantata which Sunday

healingdeafmuteDecapolis

Jesus healing a deaf and mute man at Decapolis, by Bartholomeus Breenbergh, 1635

Last week, Bach gave his principal trumpet and horn player Gottfried Reiche a little break, but this week he needs him back: after the “old style” church motet opening chorus for Trinity 11, this week’s cantata for Trinity 12 opens with festive trumpets and timpani.

Listen to this cantata 69a Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele in the recording by Bach Collegium Japan on Spotify, with Toshio Shimada on trumpet.

Find the text here, and the score here.

Even though the text of the Gospel for this Sunday, the story of Jesus healing a deaf and mute man, is a jubilant one, it is still unusual that for a “regular” Sunday Bach would use three trumpets and timpani in the orchestra. Had the council complained about him teaching too much of his stern theology, being too somber, in the past cantatas? Was perhaps Anna Magdalena’s father (the principal trumpeter at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, and most probably a friend of Reiche, who was from that same region) in Leipzig to see his daughter and grandkids, and wanted to play in the orchestra with his friend? Again, all good material for a movie script …

In his journal of their cantata pilgrimage in 2000, John Eliot Gardiner writes that the trumpet part in the opening chorus makes him think of the last seven bars of the Cum Sancto Spiritu from the Mass in B minor. I agree, but the start of this opening chorus also really makes me think back to cantata 147 for the feast of the Visitation of Mary on July 2.

Just like last week’s cantata, and many other cantatas from this period, today’s composition ended up in Bach’s top 15, in the sense that he re-used it many times afterwards, and reworked it into important other works. In this case he changed the tenor aria with oboe da caccia and recorder into an alto aria for oboe and violin for a performance in 1727, and reworked the entire cantata into a celebratory cantata for the re-election of the council in 1749 (BWV 69).

Wieneke Gorter, August 14, 2016.

Trinity 11, 1723: Bach on a roll

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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11th Sunday after Trinity, according to Lutheran Church year, Agnès Mellon, Bach Collegium Japan, BWV 105, BWV 136, BWV 179, BWV 234, BWV 236, BWV 46, Collegium Vocale Gent, Masaaki Suzuki, Miah Persson, Peter Kooij, Philippe Herreweghe, Thomas Hobbs

8ea433d635c0bd84d61c155e0969f602c9c37beb
Mendelssohn’s sketch of the Thomasschule (St. Thomas School) and, behind it, the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig.

Thank you for following this blog, and thank you for reading this long post all the way to the end!

For Trinity 11, which was last Sunday (August 7 in 2016, August 8 in 1723) we’re listening to Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, with a superb opening chorus and one of the most beautiful soprano arias Bach ever wrote.

MiahPersson_MonikaRittershaus
Miah Persson. Photo by Monika Rittershaus.

I prefer Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata. It’s a special recording, with Miah Persson singing the soprano aria. She’s having quite a career now, recently starring in Michel van der Aa’s opera Blank Out, singing Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Scala in Milan in September and October, and going on a recital tour in the USA  later this season [2016/2017], so I think we’re lucky to have her beautiful voice and sensitive interpretation on this recording from 1999.

Listen to this recording on Spotify. Please consider purchasing this recording on jpc.de, ArkivMusic, Amazon, or iTunes. Soloists on this recording are Miah Persson, soprano; Makoto Sakurada, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass.

The BBC recorded Gardiner’s live performance of this cantata in 2000, and you can watch that here on youTube. Soloists in this performance are Magdalena Kožená, soprano; Mark Padmore, tenor; and  Stephan Loges, bass.

Find the score here (it’s fun to read along with the recording, especially in the opening chorus, to see what Bach does with the fugue).

Find the German text with English translation here.

It is now more than two months since Bach started his new job in Leipzig, and he is about three weeks into writing a brand new composition every week, and I’m sorry if I sound too casual here, but he’s on a roll. He must now have a vision of what it is he really wants to do for these churches (see the tiny preludes to his Passions he incorporates in cantatas 105 and 46), and he must have the classes at the St. Thomas School organized, and his singers sufficiently trained, so that he can now have them sing a new and challenging opening chorus every week.  Just listening to the opening choruses alone, starting with the one of cantata 136 for Trinity 8, I marvel at what he comes up with every time. Every single one of them is stunning, but at the same time completely different from the one of the previous Sunday. This time Bach chooses to write a perfect “old style” (Palestrina-style) motet fugue as opening chorus.

As always, to fully understand the cantata and not miss any of Bach’s hidden messages, it is important to look at the Gospel reading for the day. In this case it is the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (or Pharisee and the Tax Collector), a story Jesus tells as an illustration on how to pray: the Pharisee is full of himself, telling God how good he is, while the Publican in his own prayer merely asks for mercy, and tells God how bad he is.  This concept of “how to be a good Christian before God” was very important to Bach and apparently his librettist got the message loud and clear. He or she uses the opportunity to first write a strong protest against fake religion and hypocrisy in “Christianity today” in movements 1 to 3 (probably having certain people in Leipzig in mind), after which he/she states that all Christians should take the humbleness of the publican as example in movements 4 to 6. For another example of how Bach interprets this Bible story, read my post about Cantata 113, written for this same 11th Sunday after Trinity, in 1724.

The most special feature of the fugue in the opening chorus is that since the text talks about beautiful outer appearance versus a bad character, Bach uses a mirror-fugue, which he used as well in fugues 5-7 from the Art of the Fugue (the theme of six bars is first introduced by the basses, and then is answered by the tenors in an “inversion:” every step up from the basses becomes a step down in the tenor part.)

To understand how Bach built this intricate fugue I am sharing the excellent music example and diagram by Dutch Bach writer Eduard van Hengel, with his permission:

179_diagram1
179-diagram2

Even though the text here is in Dutch, the diagram speaks for itself, with this quick explanation of the numbers and symbols:

1 = The theme (or first half-sentence of the text: Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei). Note the ascending line on the word “Gottesfurcht” (fear of God/love of God) and the descending line on the word “Heuchelei” (hypocrisy).

2 = The counter-subject (or second half-sentence of this text: und diene Gott nicht mit falschem Herzen). Note here that there is a chromatic line every time the word “falschem” appears in the text: for the chromatic line the composers needs accidentals that are not part of the key the piece is written in, which in the “old polyphony” would be seen as “falsch” (not right, off-key).

Upward arrow = fugue theme regular

Downward arrow = fugue theme inversed (mirror fugue)

2* = a more compact (only 4 bars instead of 6 bars long) theme which is derived from the first counterpoint/counter-subject on the words und diene Gott nicht mit falschem Herzen, still with the chromatic line on falschem Herzen.

The numbers at the top are measure (“maat”) numbers.

Bach himself must have greatly valued this cantata. About 15 years later, he used no less than three movements from this cantata for use in his short masses, or Lutheran masses.**

The opening chorus was later “recycled” as the first movement (Kyrie) in the Mass in G Major, BWV 236. Keep listening, or scroll to 18:00 and you’ll discover that the tenor aria Quoniam (sung here by Thomas Hobbs) was, with some changes and a much slower tempo, recycled from the tenor aria in this cantata 179. In cantata 179 the tenor aria gets a colorful accompaniment of two oboes and first violins in unison. The second violins and violas fill in the meaningless middle part (representing the “nothingness, emptiness”). When recycling this later for the Quoniam in the Mass in G Major, Bach uses only one solo oboe for the accompaniment, and completely leaves out all strings (confirming that with a different text, the meaningless middle part is not relevant anymore).

This cantata’s wonderful soprano aria (with two oboi da caccia and basso continuo) was later reworked into the Qui Tollis for the Mass in A Major, BWV 234 (with two flutes and only high strings as continuo). This was actually how I first knew and loved this soprano aria, I didn’t know cantata 179 until I started listening to it for this blog. Please click on this link and listen to the amazing Agnès Mellon sing the Qui Tollis from the Mass in A Major.

Wieneke Gorter, August 14, 2016, updated August 21, 2020.

** These are called “short” or “Lutheran” masses because they consisted of only the Kyrie and Gloria part of the traditional Catholic mass. Bach wrote four of them (BWV 233-236), and they are all made up of existing movements from cantatas, but reworked and compiled in a very smart way and they are all absolutely beautiful. You can purchase an album with Herreweghe’s recording of all of them on jpc.de, iTunes, or Amazon.

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